ART @ SOCAP12

ART AND EXPRESSION SPACE

Back at SOCAP by popular demand, art is again being called upon to help us describe and understand the three-dimensional ramifications of our mission to reinvent the economy. This year, our artists take on the theme of take-make-waste: what does take-make-waste mean for our society, our planet, and our souls? We hope that art at SOCAP will invite you into a robust thinking space, and offer reprieve and rejuvenation.

The Artist in Residence Program at Recology San Francisco is a unique art and education program that provides artists with access to discarded materials, a stipend, and a large studio space. By supporting artists who work with reused materials, Recology hopes to encourage people to conserve natural resources and promote new ways of thinking about art and the environment.

Since its founding in 1990, over ninety professional Bay Area artists and thirty student artists have completed residencies at this one of a kind program, and have made art from discarded materials. The studio is located at the San Francisco Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, a 47-acre facility that includes the garbage transfer station, the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, the Organics Annex, the Public Disposal and Recycling Area (“The Dump”), and other recycling facilities.

Artists have scavenging privileges for four months and 24-hour access to the company’s well equipped art studio. During the last week of the residency, the public is invited to attend the artist’s exhibition. Three pieces produced during the residency are included in Recology’s permanent collection, and continue to be shown in exhibitions both locally and nationally. The program’s outreach activities target the general public, school children, and the Bay Area arts community.

Nemo Gould, 2007 artist-in-residence

“What makes a thing fascinating is to not completely know it. It is this gap in our understanding that the imagination uses as its canvas. Salvaged material is an ideal medium to make use of this principle. A “found object” is just a familiar thing seen as though for the first time. By maintaining this unbiased view of the objects I collect, I am able to create forms and figures that fascinate and surprise. These sculptures are both familiar and new. Incorporating consumer detritus with my own symbology, they are the synthesis of our manufactured landscape and our tentative place within it – strong and frail at the same time.”

ABOUT OUR CURATOR:Maura Dilley is a social innovation consultant who is passionate about systems change for sustainability. This is her second year taking on the challenge of introducing art to SOCAP as a wedge in the full spectrum conversation on change making. Maura lives in San Francisco and is co-founder of the social innovation consultancy, MDMJ Co-Labs.